[wxqc] Discussion of weather data quality issues

[Thomas Giella KN4LF]

Keith that is good news to my friend Don Jeerings and I concerning Davis 
releasing the third party use of it's data format. When did this happen? We 
have not found any third party vendors that are aware that the information 
is now available.

In 2004 Don and I suffered power failures from the seven hurricanes that 
struck the state. We had back up generators that kept our computers and 
broadband cable modems up for data upload to the Internet BUT there were 
power failures elsewhere in the region that took our broadband cable access 
down.

As Don and I are ham radio operators we looked into VHF radio transmission 
of our weather observation data to the WWW via APRS during weather 
emergencies and discovered that their were no third party TNC's available 
that would allow us to interface our Davis VP2's to our VHF transceivers.

A fellow ham radio operator and weather station enthusiast that knows more 
about the issue than Don and I, verified that Davis had not released the 
information into the public domain. Thanks for the link I will have to pass 
on the information via the link that you provided.

http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/download/Vantage%20Serial%20Protocol%20Docs%20v2.1.0.zip

Take Care,
Thomas Giella, KN4LF
Retired Meteorologist
Lakeland, FL, USA
kn4lf at earthlink.net

Lakeland, Florida Daily Climatological Weather Data Archive: 
http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf22.htm
Lakeland, Florida Real Time Weather Observations: 
http://www.kn4lf.com/index1.html
FL & US Raw Weather Forecasting Resource Links: 
http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf13.htm
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God: 
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/audio/newevidence.htm

Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:18:30 -0400
From: Keith Miller <kdmiller at oldsgmail.com>
Subject: Re: [wxqc] Pole for wind gauge
To: 'Discussion of weather data quality issues'
<wxqc at lists.gladstonefamily.net>
[mailto:wxqc-bounces at lists.gladstonefamily.net]On Behalf Of Don
Jeerings
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 12:08 AM
To: Discussion of weather data quality issues
Subject: Re: [wxqc] Pole for wind gauge

>Ron.. I have had a bad disappointment with the Davis. In
>times of storm, the power often goes off and your station
>cannot communicate to NWS.

That is an issue beyond the control of Davis, or any other
supplier.

> This is when it is most needed. There are radio links
> available for wireless transmission (Amateur radio links)
> but Davis will not release any of the format information
> for a third party operation.

I beg to disagree, Davis has published their data format
so any 3rd party can make use of it:
http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/download/Vantage%20Serial%20Pr
otocol%20Docs%20v2.1.0.zip
If this weren't the case, there wouldn't be so many 3rd party
applications that supported it. If you're trying to get the
data to a TNC, that should be a minor issue.

Keith
--
CW5250 => http://weather.stadhaugh.com